Upper Darby man gets jail time for Upper Merion robbery

NORRISTOWN — An Upper Darby man pleaded guilty Wednesday to robbing the Sunoco on Gulph Mills Road in Upper Merion in November and was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison.

Court documents indicate that Charles Kenney, 29, of the 2200 block of South Hardwood Avenue, will serve his sentence concurrently with previously imposed sentences from Delaware County. Online court documents also show Kenney was sentenced on May 7 to eight to 20 years in prison for robberies in Haverford and Upper Darby Townships by a Delaware County judge.

Kenney was also ordered to pay $500 in restitution to the Sunoco.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, on Nov. 3, 2013, at 6:20 p.m., police responded to the Sunoco on Gulph Mills Road in Upper Merion for a report of a robbery.

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An employee of the store told police a white male between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, between 160-180 pounds with short, light-colored facial hair walked into the store and began walking around the aisles. There were two other customers in the store, and when they left, the man came to the counter and requested a pack of cigarettes. When the employee turned back toward the man with the cigarettes, the man was holding a silver gun and pointing it at the employee.

According to the affidavit, he man said, “Give me all the money or I’ll kill you.”

The employee opened the drawer, and the man grabbed approximately $500 out of the register and put it into his sweatshirt before leaving the store.

The arresting affidavit does not say how police identified Kenney as the suspect, but on Nov. 7, 2013, he was arrested by Upper Darby police for his connection with several gunpoint robberies in Delaware County. Investigators interviewed him Nov. 13, and he admitted to robbing the Sunoco, according to the affidavit.

Kenney and his girlfriend, Jennifer Ciarrocchi, 33, were arrested in Tinicum Township when a police officer there recognized the car they were driving. According to the report, Kenney and Ciarrocchi took part in a three-week series of robberies in Delaware County, and after the robberies, the couple would drive to the Kensington section of Philadelphia and buy heroin with the money they stole.

Ciarrocchi was sentenced to 3 1/2 to 10 years in prison for her role in the Delaware County robberies.